


Taking Flight

by Aurum_Auri



Series: Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lots of Hurt, M/M, Wingfic, Wings, implied minor character death, lots of comfort, physical/emotional torture, victor really needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 06:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14372835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurum_Auri/pseuds/Aurum_Auri
Summary: This was all Yuuri had ever known: the cage, the pain, and the silent, pretty, blue-eyed boy in the cage across the way.Yuuri was an avian-human hybrid, resigned to life in a cage for the rest of his life. But freedom was more than just a dream for himself. He'd do anything to see that boy in the cage fly free.





	Taking Flight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatsup_buttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsup_buttercup/gifts).



> A tumblr prompt! 'Winged Victuuri hurt/comfort'
> 
> This one got away from me a little and became longer than I planned, but hopefully it makes up for your work stress!!! 
> 
> Loosely inspired by Maximum Ride but I haven't read it in years and years so it's really not that close.

This was all Yuuri had ever known: the cage, the pain, and the silent, pretty, blue-eyed boy in the cage across the way. 

They were different from the others. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. The ones who kept them, the ones in white lab coats and medical scubs, they were the normal ones. The ones allowed to lead lives outside of the stark, stainless-steel and gunmetal facility Yuuri called home.

Meanwhile, Yuuri and the others were the aberrations. Abnormals.

They were the few and the odd.

Yuuri knew so little about the other avian-human hybrids, and that was fine. Sometimes the others didn’t come back. They all had their turns being taken to the white room, where cold steel scalpels cut across skin, often without anything to numb the pain. He heard many of them, their screams and their thrashing in the restraints.

Once, Yuuri had tried to talk to one of them. He was a small blond, just a child, his wings like downy white clouds when they pulled around his bony, skinny body, and his green eyes cold and staring down from behind the wire mesh of his cage. 

He looked so small, so vulnerable.

Yuuri remembered how the boy had screamed the first time he’d been brought in, spitting and swearing like a feral animal. White feathers had flown through the air, whipped into a frenzy. 

His cage was the only one that had been placed in whisper distance. Anything louder than that could be overheard by the guards, and the guards took a great pleasure in bringing down nightsticks over the fingers and thighs of those who misbehaved. 

Yuuri felt starved for human contact. The little boy was brusque, cocky, and careless, and still he was the kindest interaction Yuuri had felt in years. For three months, he was the only thing that made Yuuri feel human again, in a way he hadn’t felt in years. 

Then one day, the boy was taken to the white room. Yuuri heard him scream and beg for mercy, the sound of machinery and wet plops of liquid hitting the floor. Then suddenly there was silence. 

The cage was removed. Yuuri didn’t see him again. 

Yuuri was hollow after that. 

But no one looked as hollow as the pretty, white haired boy across the aisle. He’d been here longer than Yuuri had. He never screamed when they took him into the white room. He was silent when they carried him out, and he was silent when they dropped his limp body back into the cage each time. 

Yuuri couldn’t fathom it. 

Infliction of pain was an attempt to force a bodily rejection of the mutations as much as find the limits of their hybrid bodies. The people in the coats had said as much, while they attached stimulants to his skin and sent currents through his body, took knives to his skin to see how long he could bleed before passing out, see how much sheer force pressure his wing bones could take before they snapped.

The answer to that was ‘not much’. 

Yuuri’s wings looked much the same covered in blood as they did when clean, the stains hidden in black and grey mottling. But guards would drop the older boy into his cage, and Yuuri could see the way they’d be stained pink for days and weeks, fresh wounds reopening and spilling lines of scarlet down the primary feathers. 

Yuuri sat up, leaning forward in his cage. Today, the boy was shaking, his long hair messy over his shoulders. It had been a brutal day in the white room, that much was clear. 

Yuuri met his eyes, and there was something unfathomably deep in them. He blinked at Yuuri once, then twice. 

The boy’s fingers laced through the wire mesh. His lips shaped words Yuuri couldn’t hear. 

The doors opened. Yuuri was ripped from the cage faster than he could muster up whatever paltry resistance he could bring himself to manage. He didn’t struggle as much these days. Even if he could break free, there was nowhere he could run. He couldn't spread his wings and fly. 

If he somehow got out, he knew nothing of the world outside this room, beyond what little he'd overheard in conversations. 

Yuuri closed his eyes in the stark, white room and braced himself for what would come next. 

He clenched his teeth, and he held back his screams. If the pretty older boy could stay silent, so could Yuuri. 

* * *

Time was hard to judge in the cages, but there was enough routine to get a fuzzy idea of how it passed. Regular trips to a treadmill, where they'd be run until they passed out, marked passage of time better than trying to guess days and nights inside the facility.

It might have been months. It might have been years. 

Yuuri caught the boy’s eyes more than once. It was never deliberate. Yuuri couldn't take the thought of losing someone else, of growing attached and having it all ripped away. But the boy mouthed the word Victor, putting just enough sound behind it that he was beaten black and blue, but Yuuri had been able to hear. 

The bruises had been worth replying in kind, calling out “Yuuri!” as he was dragged back to the white room once more. 

Victor. The blue eyed boy with silver wings. 

In the white room, Yuuri was restrained. 

The older man, balding on top and a bit portly, stepped into the room, snapping the latex gloves on his wrists to test the fit. “Is the anesthesia ready?” he asked gruffly. 

Yuuri was strapped to a table, placed on his stomach and unable to move an inch. His wings were pinioned to the tables beside him. Rings had been pierced through the joint, agonizingly painful and an extremely good reason not to try and pull them from where they were hooked. 

His body was tensing and coiled tight. He was bracing for the pain that would be soon to come. 

He glared at the wall and ignored the others in white coats finishing the prep. Something was swiped over the crook of his elbow, and a needle was fed into the vein. 

He tasted something strange in the back of his throat. His eyes were heavy. He blinked, and it all went dark faster than expected, like falling asleep.

* * *

 

Yuuri woke slowly, feeling warm. His hands slid out of soft blankets, feeling at sheets beneath him, a mattress, a bed. 

Yuuri opened his eyes. The light was not the artificial halogens that had been shining on him since he was first brought into the facility. It was something he'd thought was only a dream. 

The sun. 

Yuuri slid out of bed. He wasn't dressed in the flimsy, thin, white smock that he'd been given to cover himself in his cage. He was in clothes, soft to the touch, patterned with little yellow birds. He beat his wings. 

They were free, not restrained. 

His legs were shaky as he stood. Warily, he slipped out of the room. Was this some kind of test? Some new psychological torture they'd inflict upon him? 

Someone was in the kitchen, humming. The smell of something amazing came over the air. Yuuri kept his footsteps as quiet as he could, creeping closer, sizing the man up. 

He was tall, a little older but not aged. His dark hair was long and tied back, his jawline prominent and his chin a bit too large for his face. The man stopped his humming and smiled at Yuuri. 

“You're up early! Pancakes?”

Yuuri hid in the doorway, drawing his wings in tight to his body. The man held out the pan in his hand, showing identical circular pieces of food sizzling away. 

“I've got eggs going, too. Not sure what you like, but the others love them. I'm Celestino, by the way. The others call me Ciao Ciao.” The man turned back to the stove, attending to another skillet. 

“What's going on?” Yuuri asked. His voice was a hollow croak. He couldn't remember when the last time he'd spoken was. It was all screaming for as long as he could remember. 

“Yakov got you out. You’ll meet him soon. We had to be careful though. We faked your death, so the facility won't come looking for you. As far as they know, you're a failed experiment, and were recycled for parts. You're free now.”

“Free,” Yuuri said dubiously. “How do I know this isn’t a trick? What if they find out?” His eyes were drawn to the pancakes. His stomach was rumbling noisily. He’d never smelled anything so amazing in his life. 

Celestino smiled. “Trust me, if something happens, more of us are going down than just you. Everyone here has a vested interest in staying safe.”

Yuuri glanced up. His head tipped. “Everyone?”

Celestino ushered him into a seat. “Yuri, Phichit, Chris, Mila, and Seung Gil. Chris and Phichit are out flying, and the others are still asleep. You’ll meet them soon. How about something to eat in the meanwhile?” Ciao Ciao plated breakfast and slid the plate in front of Yuuri.

His stomach rumbled again, and Yuuri dived in. He ate with his hands, he was so hungry. He closed his eyes, making the most obscene sounds at the taste. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d eaten anything that wasn’t grey sludge. 

He eyed Celestino as he ate, still uneasy. There were sounds from upstairs, and Yuuri flinched, going flat against the table. His wings shrank in, clinging tight to his spine. Celestino just smiled pleasantly. “Ah, sounds like they’re awake.”

He met them, one by one, and it slowly started to sink in.

They were like him. They were free. A girl with hair and wings like fire. A boy with a smile like the sun and wings that were pale at the tips and a dark brown along the top. 

A boy with green eyes came downstairs, and Yuuri broke down into tears. 

“You're alive,” he whispered, unable to believe it. The little, tiny boy with the gawky, oversized wings had grown into a pre-teen. 

The deaths were faked. Not all of them, but the small flock gathered here, they were alive. 

A floppy eared poodle came skittering down the stairs, a lovely creature called Makkachin that quickly stole Yuuri’s heart with the loll of its tongue and its eagerness for scratches on its belly. 

“You're getting us out?” Yuuri said, as everything was explained to him. “All of us?”

“That's the goal,” Celestino said gravely. “We’re focusing first on those which the best chances of survival outside the facility. Yakov works hard to maintain his cover so he can stay in the good graces of the overseers, even when he ‘loses’ a few. It's a rough job. Not for the squeamish.”

Yuuri thought back the long hours of white hot agony as his body was mutilated and broken and reassembled once more. There were countless men and women in lab coats, all running their own private tests. It was rare to see one not enjoying the event. 

But Yuri was here. Yuri was alive. That was at least something Yuuri could trust. 

“What about Victor?” Yuuri asked. 

“Everyone gets out,” Celestino said. “We will make sure everyone goes free.”

But adjusting to life on the outside wasn't easy. At night he had nightmares of the white room that left him waking up, screaming. He was jumpy, prone to flinching at the slightest provocation. His wings were in poor shape, tattered to ribbons and weak from disuse.

It was months before they were healed and strong enough to fly. Even then, he couldn't bring himself to leave the ground. Every attempt, his nerve would fail, anxiety would get the best of him, and he'd crash to the ground. 

The others soared. Their time was like a long-healed scar. But Yuuri’s mind was still caught in the cage by the white room, looking at the sad little boy named Victor. He couldn't forget the way that single, silent tear had tracked down his cheek as Yuuri was carried away for the last time. 

Victor. The only thing Yuuri had ever heard him say had been that one word, that one name. What had made Yuuri special enough to earn that?

Years passed, and more hybrids were freed. Some flew, some were like Yuuri, and could never take off from the ground. Yuuri found himself scrambling to each new arrival, seeking a familiar face, and the same long, white hair he remembered in his dreams.  

Was Victor even alive still after all this time? 

“He is,” Celestino said uneasily when Yuuri asked. “As far as I know.”

“Then why don't you get him out?” Yuuri asked. He was shaking with the raw force of it. He could barely contain himself. “He's suffering, too.”

“Victor is their pride and joy. If something happens to him, we all go down,” Celestino said. “We’ll get him out, but we have to be certain that we cover our tracks, and we cover them well.”

“I don’t understand.” 

“Victor was the first viable embryo they created to survive to adolescence. Everyone who has survived, every single human-avian hybrid in the facility, is because of what they learned from Victor. His death would put all of our heads on the chopping block.”

“That never stopped them from making his life a living hell,” Yuuri hissed. He glanced out the windows, where Yuri was teaching the newest member of their flock, a boy named Otabek, to fly. “How do you choose who walks free and who stays trapped in that nightmare? How do you sleep at night knowing the suffering we dealt with day in and day out?”

“I don’t,” Celestino said, looking taken aback. “Yuuri, I don’t sleep. You think I don’t know? You think I haven’t seen it? But I’ve never seen you so fired up over something. We are trying, Yuuri, believe me. We need to be able to deflect the blame to a single source that would leave the rest of us faultless. We have to do a new method every time, to make sure nothing seems suspicious. We’re trying as hard as we can to get him out.”

“Try harder,” Yuuri said. And he would, too. 

He went for runs with Makkachin and became stronger. He flexed his wings, flapped them and took shaky takeoffs that ended with him crashing into the earth. He was strong enough. He knew he could fly. The country roads became takeoff strips, carved with long ruts where Yuuri crashed hard.

The dirt rash and bruises was nothing to the scalpels. Tired, aching muscles had nothing on the violent urge to vomit that came from a broken bone. 

Yuuri had put on weight in the first three years he’d been free, gorging on all the delicious, fatty foods that he’d never tasted before. But the pounds fell away, turning to lean muscle. He fell hard into bed each night, rising with the sun to do it all again. 

“You’re going to kill yourself,” Phichit said. “What good does all this accomplish?”

Yuuri shook his head. “You know as well as I do. Something in you dies in that place. Maybe that that thing has already died in Victor. Maybe he won’t make it out. But if there’s anything at all I can do to help, I’ll do it.”

It was another two years. 

It was hard to guess ages, without knowing a birthday. Yuuri guessed he was somewhere in his early- to mid-twenties. Phichit might have been a little younger, Chris a little older. Yurio looked like he was fifteen. If Victor was older than Yuuri, it meant that Victor had spent at least 20 years of his life in that facility. 

Yuuri thought it was a dream. 

There was almost no warning, no time to prepare. Celestino got the call in the dead of night, and the sounds of him swearing and stumbling into a pair of shoes and down to the kitchen roused half the house. 

Yuuri sat up. He wiped the sleep from his eyes. He was still prone to fitful sleep even now, the bed still softer than he could bear, and woke easily. He slipped to the top of the stairs, joining an exhausted looking Chris and Mila to watch Celestino sprint outside. 

They exchanged a look. Chris shifted uneasily. There was a car out front when they peeked through the door. Celestino was helping Yakov drag something out of the trunk. It was a bag, very heavy from the looks of things, bulky at one end and more slender along the other. Yuuri rushed up to help. 

It was heavy, maybe almost as heavy as Phichit when Yuuri picked him up. Yuuri was able to help the two older men get the bag to the kitchen. They laid the bag gently on the tile floor.

“What did you do?” Celestino hissed.

Yakov was impassive. “I saw a chance and I took it. Cao Bin will lose his job over this, maybe his life, I don’t know. But we have to hurry.”

“What’s going on?” Yuuri asked, as the bag’s zipper was swiftly yanked down. An arm and a silver wing flopped out. Strands of pale hair spilled from the top. Celestino reached in and pulled out a battered, bloody Victor.

All the air in the room evaporated. Suddenly Yuuri couldn’t breathe, the world falling out beneath him. 

Bruises lined Victor’s cheekbones and shadowed his eyes. A cut over his eyebrow was slowly trickling blood where the movement had reopened it. The wings were stained through with pink, just as Yuuri had always remembered them. The beautiful hair was a rat’s nest on his head. 

Yuuri fell to his knees. He was helpless, watching as Yakov pulled Victor free. Celestino returned with the medical kit and started to treat some of Victor’s injuries. “He’s alive,” Yuuri whispered. 

“He’ll be out for a while. I have to get back before anyone gets suspicious. Can you take over?” Yakov said. 

Celestino nodded. “I’ve got it from here. Get back there. Yuuri, you said you wanted to help. Get water and grab a change of clothes from Chris’s room. We need lots of towels. You remember how we splinted Seung Gil’s wing, right?”

Yuuri nodded. He immediately grabbed materials from the closets. They laid Victor on towels, washed his wounds, and carefully removed a few of the damaged feathers around the wound. Compound fracture. 

They worked through the rest of the night, patching Victor up. Yuuri’s hands were shaking so badly the whole time he had to step back several times. But the steady rise and fall of Victor’s chest drew him back, the slight seizing up of Victor’s sleep-slackened face when setting the splint pulled his wing. 

Yuuri picked Victor up very carefully, Celestino making sure that nothing pulled, and they placed him on his stomach in the spare bed in the room across the hall from Yuuri’s. “This feels like a dream,” Yuuri said. Dawn was spilling through the curtains. Yuuri’s eyes felt heavy, but he knew he’d never sleep.

“Get some rest. Victor will be out for a while,” Celestino said. 

Yuuri shook his head. “In a bit.”

Victor would wake up scared, probably confused, and definitely mistrustful, if he was anything like Yuuri, if he was anything like the others. Yuuri left the room and returned with a hairbrush. He knelt beside the bed.

It was long, slow work, picking at the tangles gently enough that it didn’t pull. 

He held each clump of hair between his fingers, dragging the bristles over it again and again until it shimmered like silk. He laid it out and moved to the next, until it fanned across the pillow, longer than Yuuri remembered, the ends split and curling. 

He hummed softly as he worked, his eyes growing heavier and heavier. When he finished with Victor’s hair, he started in on Victor’s wings, carefully picking out any broken feathers, laying the others straight. It looked like Victor hadn’t touched his wings in months.

Natural oils clung to Yuuri’s fingers, collected from a little gland at the base of the wings, and he carefully spread it over the feathers to protect them. The work was monotonous and simple, something he could devote his entire attention to. It was tired work, not physically demanding, but something that soothed him, left him at peace. 

Yuuri’s head drooped and he slept there at Victor’s bedside, dreaming of nothing for once in his life. 

He woke with the sudden flinch of Victor’s entire body, a massive jerk that propelled Victor up and back and kneeling at the foot of the bed, clutching the blankets in a white knuckle grip. His wings, one of them awkward in the splint, were puffed up, making him look larger. 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Yuuri said. There was frantic scratching at the door, and Victor’s head whipped around. He was breathing hard and fast, his eyes wide. “It’s okay, Victor, you’re safe. You’re free.”

Victor was shaking. Yuuri reached out, and paused. Victor had shrank back from the touch, eyeing him warily. His lips were shaping silent words that Yuuri couldn’t make out. His eyes darted back to the door, then locked onto Yuuri.

There was doubt in his eyes.

“I promise, this isn’t a trick. We really are free. Give it time, you’ll understand soon. It took me a while, too,” Yuuri said. Was he saying the wrong thing? He was so bad at this. He clutched at the sheets, hoping he wasn’t making it all worse.

Suddenly Victor slumped forward. Yuuri scrambled to catch him. Victor’s skin was feverish, and his cheeks were flushed bright red. He was burning up in Yuuri’s arms. Yuuri carefully laid him down. “I’ll be right back, okay?” Yuuri said.

He hurried to grab a damp cloth and pressed it to Victor’s forehead. Victor hissed at it as it touched his skin. 

“Just sleep, you’ll feel better when you wake up,” Yuuri breathed.

Victor’s eyelids fluttered, heavy and blue and distant.The wings drooped, relaxing onto the bed, and Victor was out once more.

* * *

 

He slept for two days, on and off, lips stretched wide in silent screams from nightmares he couldn't escape. He was weak when at last his fever broke. 

Yuuri was in another room when Victor woke with a crash. 

Yuuri opened the door, finding Victor standing on shaky legs, his wings puffed up and trembling. His hair was a mess around his shoulders, wild down his back. He’d knocked over a lamp. 

“It’s okay,” Yuuri soothed. 

Victor was like a wild animal backed into a corner, and Yuuri treated him as such, not getting too close, scared to drive Victor away, but desperate to soothe the wild streak of fear in his eyes. Victor’s breath was harsh and fast. 

“Victor, you’re safe now, you’re free.”

Victor’s lips moved with silent words. He was looking at Yuuri like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. 

“Do you remember me?” Yuuri asked. Victor nodded slowly. “Can I touch you?” Yuuri asked. 

Victor hesitated, and nodded. 

Yuuri folded him into his arms, and Victor collapsed against him, going limp. His body was painfully thin and bony in Yuuri’s arms, half starved, and Yuuri managed to pull him into the bed. His hands slid along Victor’s back and wings, straightening out the puffed up feathers that had been mussed. 

Victor slowly started to relax. 

There was a scrabbling of claws on the floor, and the door burst open, Makkachin pushing it open and sprinting inside.

“No, Makkachin, wait-” Yuuri started, but the dog had already leapt onto the bed, frantically licking Victor’s face. Victor’s face had lit up, and he gleefully let Makkachin cover his face in sloppy wet kisses. 

“Come on, I'm sure you're hungry. Do you want to meet the others?”

Victor blinked at him. 

Victor was more standoffish when he met the rest. He smiled, but Yuuri could see an odd pulling at the corners of his eyes, the way Victor’s smile seemed just like the mask Victor had worn when the guards had beaten him senseless. 

Lunch was brought out, and the others pressed Victor for information. But his voice was gone. He had nothing so say. The flock talked amongst themselves, and attention on Victor lessened. After an hour of this, Yuuri noticed Victor had slipped out the back and gone back to the room upstairs. 

Yuuri made two cups of tea and crept upstairs. He pushed the door a little, peeking around the door frame. 

Victor was wrapped in blankets, his wings pulled tight around him. He was shaking. Makkachin’s tail thumped where it poked out of the blanket. The dog was curled in Victor’s lap, head on his shoulder. 

“Is everything okay?” Yuuri asked. “Do you want to be left alone?”

Victor was trembling. He shook his head, reaching out with his hand, palm up. A question.  _ Stay with me? _

Yuuri sat at the other end of the bed. “Tea always makes me feel better. Let me know when you want me to leave, okay? I know you probably need your rest.”

Victor nodded, touching his chest. A promise. 

They fell asleep on the bed together, tea forgotten on the bedside table.

* * *

 

It was three weeks before Victor’s wings were healed. He never said a single word the entire time. Disuse had left them weak, but Victor frequently joined Yuuri on his morning runs, beating them and building strength. 

Yuuri tried to give Victor time alone, tried to let him spend time with others in the flock so he wouldn’t monopolize Victor’s time as he so desperately wanted to. But whatever time Victor spent with others, it was almost always clamped tight as a limpet to Yuuri’s side. 

Even nights were more often spent together than not. 

Nightmares often ended with one of them crawling into the others room. The warmth of another body soothed away the ragged edges the dreams left. The heavy weight of wings blanketed them. 

Victor was broken. 

He’d stare into the distance, a hollow shell of a person. Only Makkachin could drag him out of it when it particularly really bad. Sometimes he’d drape himself over Yuuri, desperate for a touch, a trace of physical contact. 

Beyond the windows, Yurio and Otabek were flying, and Victor watched them with longing in his heart. “You want to fly,” Yuuri said, in no uncertain terms.

Victor glanced into the mirror. Yuuri was brushing Victor’s hair out. Victor’s chin tipped.  _ Yes _ .

“You’re sure?” he asked.

Victor’s wings buffeted Yuuri, knocking him a little closer. He pointed to the scissors. Yuuri passed them over, confused. Victor stood up, and he raised the scissors, slicing his bangs off with a swift stroke.

“Victor!” Yuuri cried, watching the silver hair fall to the floor. 

Victor smiled, and for once, it felt real. “I want to. Yuuri.” His voice crackled, rasping and thick, whispery from disuse. He raised the scissors and sliced away, hacking off huge chunks of hair and letting it fall. Victor sliced it down to his shoulders, but it was messy, choppy.

He pushed the scissors into Yuuri’s hand and dropped back into the chair. 

“Please?” he rasped. Yuuri ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the short, sudden cut where the bottom feathered out, jagged and uneven. 

“I- I don’t know how to cut hair, I’ll mess it up-” Victor placed his hands over Yuuri’s, looking at him firmly in the mirror. “If you’re sure?” Victor nodded.

Yuuri took a steadying breath, and started to trim it close to Victor’s nape. Victor closed his eyes. Yuuri took his time, checking it over, making sure that everything was even along the back. He left the bangs as Victor had sliced them, only evening them up so that Victor would be able to see without them in his eye. 

He stepped back. Victor looked different like this. Older. His cheeks had filled out over the last few weeks, the hollows gone, and his shoulders broadening by shades from a little more meat on his bones. But the trim had taken more weight off him than the weight of just hair. 

“Together,” Victor rasped. 

So he had noticed Yuuri’s reluctance to fly. Yuuri pressed his hand softly to Victor’s cheek. Victor leaned into the touch with a wider smile, his own hand laying over the top of Yuuri’s.

* * *

 

Flight practice was a disaster. The rest of the flock had gotten wind of their plans, and came out in a large group to watch them flounder through the air like drowned rats.

“I’ve seen pigs fly better!” Yurio jeered. It was meant affectionately, but instead it rankled in Yuuri’s mind. Yuuri didn’t even have the excuse Victor did, of being weak and out of practice from years in a cage. 

Yuuri had all the ability. He just couldn’t take to the air. Victor was close, throwing himself into the sky with a fierce determination and crashing down just as Yuuri had for months. Fresh ruts were carved into the dirt road. Their clothes and hair were filthy. 

People got bored and trailed back inside, but Victor and Yuuri were determined.

“You two are bleeding,” Chris tsked, shaking his head. “Come inside and try again tomorrow.”

“One more time,” Yuuri panted. Victor was on his back in the dirt, breathing heavily. Yuuri took a running start. He strained against gravity for several precious seconds and crash-landed had in the dirt, rolling head over heels.

“It’s dark,” Chris said. Yuuri looked up at the sky, seeing it awash with stars.

He sighed, and he nodded. Chris helped him to his feet, and then helped Victor up. Victor leaned heavily against Yuuri. He was putting weight on, not in that he was getting fat, but more that he was finally getting to a somewhat healthy weight. 

While Yuuri was in the shower, Victor found the bandages. They traded off, and Yuuri patched up his own wounds. With Victor sitting on his bed in a towel, Yuuri helped him bandage his own wounds. Victor’s body was beginning to show lean muscle beneath the starved ribs. 

Yuuri could see the scars of years on his body. His skin was ruined, and yet it was beautiful. Yuuri trailed his fingers down a long, pale line that traced down Victor’s spine, threading right between his wings. He felt Victor shiver. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said. “I thought it would go better.”

Victor hummed, and the answering hug was his way of saying, ‘ _ Don’t worry about it _ ’. His way of telling Yuuri that he was overthinking it. “Your wings aren’t going back enough,” he said. “And you’re not generating enough lift on the downstroke. You have the strength, why aren’t you pushing harder?”

“I’m pushing plenty hard,” Yuuri insisted, then paused. “Do you think that would work?”

Victor nodded. 

Yuuri snorted. “Well you aren’t turning your wings out enough. You need more surface area and more speed or you’re never going to take off.”

Victor raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but then nodded very seriously, contemplative. 

Yuuri stood, ready to leave, when Victor caught his shirt between his fingers, stopping Yuuri in his tracks. Yuuri turned back. Victor was reaching out, palm up.  _ Stay? _ “You’ll just come back,” he said, smiling despite the fear in his eyes. “Save you a trip?”

Yuuri stepped back up to the bed beside him, heart in his throat. “Y-yeah,” he said. Victor pulled back the blankets, and Yuuri slid in beside him. Victor traded the towel for underwear and a pair of sweatpants and climbed back into the bed. 

Yuuri laid on his back, stiff, unsure. Usually Victor crawled in with him when Yuuri was still more asleep than awake, or Yuuri would slide in with his body heavy with exhaustion and trembling from the dreams that had shaken him.

But now there was neither of those things. Yuuri layed stiff and awake, Victor stiff as a board beside him. Yuuri stared at the ceiling as Victor slowly relaxed, passing out beside him. Yuuri couldn’t get any sleep, any rest, and the hour’s slipped away.

He heard a soft whisper beside him. 

Yuuri rolled over, and he saw Victor’s face contorted unhappily. His body was curled inward, small and vulnerable, wings trembling where they jutted off the bed. Yuuri scooted closer, stroking Victor’s hair and shushing him quietly until Victor began to still.

Yuuri pulled him into his arms, folded him into his wings, and held him until Victor slept soundly. And finally, finally, Yuuri drifted off too. 

It took two more days before there was any results. They suffered more falls, scrapes, and bruises than Yuuri could count. 

He pushed off, and he rolled hard into the ground. Victor adjusted how he lifted his wings, and nodded wordlessly. Yuuri closed his eyes. Wordlessly, he steadied his breath, focusing on Victor’s hands on his skin, on Victor’s breath on his neck. 

Yuuri got a running start, and Victor took off beside him, running just far enough apart that they could unfurl their wings. Yuuri beat hard, again, again, and his feet left the ground. He beat harder. 

He could feel the air catch beneath his wings like a tangible thing, like moving through water. 

He heard a giddy laugh bubble up beside him. Yuuri looked over and saw Victor rising through the air, as shocked as Yuuri.

“Don’t stop!” Victor yelled to the wind. Yuuri wavered, and he pushed up harder, until he and Victor were shakily flying near one another. Yuuri almost dropped, but he caught himself on an updraft and settled beside Victor.

He laughed. It bubbled through him, bright and lighter than air, and he was soaring. The ground fell away beneath him, until it was just the wind whipping through his hair and Victor’s infectious laugh beside him.

“We did it!” Yuuri cried. 

Victor spun in the air. He reached out, and their wings synced up, beating in time, their arms lacing together. “We did it,” Victor said. Victor was close, too close, hair whipping against his forehead and he was so joyful, so beautiful.

Yuuri pressed his lips against Victor’s.

Victor kissed him back.

And everything felt right with the world.

* * *

The only thing harder than taking off, as it turned out, was landing. 

Lesson learned, from a new collection of bruises and a twisted ankle that Yuuri would need to ice over the next few days. Yuuri couldn’t stop blushing every time he looked at Victor. But all the reassurance he needed came from Victor’s fingers laced in his. 

The nightmares wouldn’t stop so easily. The memories would never fade. But Victor was free, and now, so was Yuuri. 

**Author's Note:**

> And then they lived happily ever after, flying together in the day and cuddling together at night. They got married on a cliff overlooking the sea surrounded by the rest of the flock, and then they flew off together to an island where they had a fantastic honeymoon and no one ever put them in cages again.


End file.
